BMW launches ADAS as a Service, VW unseats CEO over CARIAD, EU prepares L4 Autonomous Vehicle Regulation, Tesla shows "Deliver Now, Fix Later" ulture

Dear Reader,

Summer continues at full force, and so do the news - here are some select items that stood out to me in automotive this month:

BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month - via The Verge

BMW is ushering in the subscription economy - for ADAS, infotainment and comfort features.

As per their Connected Drive store, certain functions can now be activated for one month, one year, three years or permanently, "as long as the technical requirements are being met for your vehicle."

Currently available paid functions on the German store website include ADAS functions like ACC and LKAS, but also heating for front seats or the steering wheel and Apple CarPlay.

Some customers might be hesitant to pay for software-unlocked functionality of equipment that is installed in the car anyway - and Tesla’s recent story about a customer’s artificially downgraded battery pack surely didn’t help the concept as a whole gain any popularity. A BMW after sales manager offered up an alternative perspective in an exchange with me:

"Function on demand gives you the freedom to purchase a function later, that you decided to not pay for in the beginning. So far nothing changed, you gain the benefit to purchase later on features that you would otherwise pay much more for with aftermarket solutions or never get when you choose a used car and miss a feature."

That sounds like a fair offer in principle, but all in all, a lot remains to be seen: Anything truly new is sure to be met with its share of criticism, but if BMW (or other OEMs who are sure to follow) truly play fair, we might be on the verge of something new … you have to admit that ”function on demand” does have a nice ring to it.

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Porsches Postponed by Buggy Software Cost VW’s CEO His Job - via Bloomberg

Nothing in this world happens for a single reason alone, but any article I’ve read on the topic points to the CARIAD situation as a key factor in VW’s decision to relieve Herbert Diess from his CEO position this month. That in itself is already big news, as the article rightly points out: “It says a lot about the state of the auto industry and where it's going that software problems have cost the CEO of a carmaker his job.”

Everyone’s a genius after the fact, but I’m not surprised this turns out to be such a terrific challenge: Pulling off something like the vision behind CARIAD would be difficult under any circumstances; but building it on the back of a legacy OEM structure, in Germany? That is one hell of a bet, alright.

I’ve heard it said that “any large-scale system that works well grew out of a small-scale system.” While I don’t know if that’s categorically true, I know that other companies have had similar struggles before: Transferring entire teams into a new organization will not change the way they work and work together just because they get new email addresses and logos - and while Oliver Blume (who’s taking over after Diess) comes from Porsche with much praise, it remains to be seen if a new CEO is enough to get it done.

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EU plans to approve sales of fully self-driving cars - via Politico

Just last month we had the UN clearing the way for Level 3 automated driving systems to operate at speeds of up to 130 km/h, this week it’s the EU that’s paving the road for Level 4 systems.

The move is part of a general revamp of the General Safety Regulation (GSR) and “will include 17 separate pieces of technical rule-making that will amend how EU countries approve vehicles for sale.”

Level 4 vehicles will initially be limited to 1 500 units per model, a limit that’s to be reviewed after 2 years. It will be very interesting to see what type of oversight is going to be proposed/implemented, to make sure that incidents and accidents are reported and reviewed in a manner that offers a fair balance between company interests and public safety.

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Tesla's Latest Recall Is the Strongest Proof of the "Deliver Now, Fix Later" Policy - via autoevolution

Tesla and their “Full Self Driving” system: Will I eventually be able to get through a month again without some news item about it? Tesla fans (and Elon Musk) are quick to point to a heightened media attention in relation to the brand: Whatever happens seems to get much more coverage than a comparable incident involving a non-Tesla vehicle might get.

There might be something to that - but then again, there’s no other OEM out there that’s pushing the limits quite like Tesla, in both good (their instrumental role in making BEVs mainstream) and bad (their safety record).

The recall reported on in this article isn’t actually about FSB but rather about a front bumper structure. However, it makes good points about the safety culture that can be inferred from Tesla’s handling and responses: A willingness to ship products as quickly as possible, even if that means offloading parts of quality control (and responsibility) to the customer and calling it public beta testing - what the author calls “Deliver now, fix later” in their headline.

The bumper structure under scrutiny has not caused any reported harm - but that’s not the big deal here. As the article so aptly sums up, “The deal is that critical safety products such as automobiles should not depend on the buyers’ goodwill to be tested: the automaker must ensure they are safe for everyone, including those who are not inside them.”

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I’m going to leave it at that for this month - hope you enjoy the read; and feel free to share any thoughts in the comments!

All the best

Tom Dahlstr?m